Heavy duty earth moving and material handling equipment is very expensive. Each piece of equipment can represent a significant investment to accomplish a very specific or limited utility with respect to the piece of equipment. The industry has recognized the need to have such expensive equipment serve more general or at lease multiple applications. An example is the familiar back-hoe device having loader arms on one end mounted with a digging bucket or scraper, and a swiveling articulated boom at the other end mounted with a bucket, jack hammer or another material handling device. For example, the industry has taken the familiar back-hoe device and adapted it to new applications to increase their utility. U.S. Pat. No. 4,175,902 to Heroz, et al. is an example of such a novel adaptation of a familiar tool to achieve new utility. Other novel adaptations which increase the scope of application of existing equipment are beneficial to the industry. A device is needed for mounting different booms, e.g., a crane boom or an excavator boom, to the same platform.
It is, therefore, a feature of the present invention to provide a conversion apparatus and method for use with excavator and crane devices for mounting different booms to the same platform.
A feature of the present invention is to provide a conversion apparatus and method for use with excavator and crane devices that uses an excavator lower crawler and an excavator upper to be a crane.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide a conversion apparatus and method for use with excavator and crane devices that can accept either excavator implements or crane implements.
Yet another feature of the invention is to provide a conversion apparatus and method for use with excavator and crane devices that is stable when adapted to be used as a crane or as an excavator.
Still another feature of the present invention is providing a conversion apparatus and method for use with excavator and crane devices that provides a range of boom angles comparable to the range of boom angles available to the boom connected to the crane body.
Yet still another feature of the present invention is to provide a conversion apparatus and method for use with excavator and crane devices having the same operating and stability characteristics as a crane.
Yet further, an additional feature of the present invention is to provide a method for adapting an excavator for use as a crane.
Yet still further, an additional feature of the present invention is to provide a method for adapting various boom devices for use with nonconforming superstructure and crawler components.
Still further, an additional feature of the present invention is to provide a method for determining a luffing triangle effective to provide a full or near-full capacity crane.
Yet still further, an additional feature of the present invention is to provide an article of manufacture for adapting an excavator for use as a full or near-full capacity crane.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized by means of the combinations and steps particularly pointed out in the appended claims.